On the contribution of ULXs to stellar feedback: an intermediate mass black hole candidate and the population of ULXs in the low-metallicity starburst galaxy ESO 338-4

Abstract

X-ray radiation from accreting compact objects is an important part of stellar feedback. The metal-poor galaxy ESO 338-4 has experienced vigorous starburst during the last 40 Myr and contains some of the most massive super star clusters in the nearby Universe. Given its starburst age and its star-formation rate, ESO 338-4 is one of the most efficient nearby manufactures of neutron stars and black holes, hence providing an excellent laboratory for feedback studies. We compared X-ray images and spectra obtained by XMM-Newton and Chandra telescopes with integral field spectroscopic VLT MUSE observations in the optical to constrain the nature of strong X-ray emitters. X-ray observations uncover three ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in ESO 338-4. The brightest among them, ESO 338~X-1, has X-ray luminosity in excess of 10^{40} erg/s. We speculate that ESO 338-4 is powered by accretion on an intermediate-mass (~300Msun) black hole. We show that X-ray radiation from ULXs and hot superbubbles strongly contributes to HeII ionization and general stellar feedback in this template starburst galaxy.

A&A, in press

References in corpus (10)

• An accreting pulsar with extreme properties drives an ultraluminous x-ray source in NGC 5907
• Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes
• X-ray binaries as the origin of nebular HeII emission in low-metallicity star-forming galaxies
• Ultra-luminous X-ray sources and neutron-star-black-hole mergers from very massive close binaries at low metallicity
• A new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources in nearby galaxies
• Dynamical masses of two young globular clusters in the blue compact galaxy ESO 338-IG04
• Bright end of the luminosity function of high-mass X-ray binaries: contributions of hard, soft and supersoft sources
• Observational properties of massive black hole binary progenitors
• The ultraluminous X-ray source HoII X-1: kinematic evidence of its escape from the cluster
• Measuring the black hole mass in Ultraluminous X-ray Sources with the X-ray Scaling Method

Cited by in corpus (8)

• The Metallicity Dependence of the High-Mass X-ray Binary Luminosity Function
• Can nebular HeII emission be explained by ultra-luminous X-ray sources?
• Ionization of HeII in star-forming galaxies by X-rays from cluster winds and superbubbles
• X-Ray Bright Active Galactic Nuclei in Local Dwarf Galaxies: Insights from eROSITA
• Resolving the Ultra-Luminous X-ray Sources in the Ly$\alpha$ Emitting Galaxy Haro 11
• Accretion-Driven Sources in Spatially Resolved Ly$\alpha$ Emitters
• Ionizing Radiation Escape from Low-Redshift Galaxies and Its Connection to Cosmic Reionization
• Gas excitation in galaxies and active galactic nuclei with He IIλ4686 and X-ray emission